The Way the World Is: The Maggie Boylan Stories

Set in Appalachian Ohio amid an epidemic of prescription opiate abuse, Michael Henson’s stunning collection of linked stories tells of a woman’s search for her own peculiar kind of redemption. Addict, thief, liar, lover, loser, hustler, Maggie Boylan is queen of invective and sultana of insult. But she is also a woman of deep compassion and resilience. Her journey is by turns frightening, funny, and deeply moving.

About the Author
Michael Henson is the author of Ransack (West End Press, 1980), A Small Room With Trouble on My Mind (West End Press, 1983), Tommy Perdue (MotesBooks, 2012), and several books of poetry. The Way the World Is: the Maggie Boylan Stories is the 2014 winner of the Brighthorse Prize for Short Fiction. He has worked as a teacher, a factory hand, a community organizer, and a substance abuse counselor and is a member of the Southern Appalachian Writers Cooperative. He lives in Cincinnati.

Superstition Review is the online literary magazine produced by creative writing and web design students at Arizona State University. The mission of our journal is to promote contemporary art and literature by providing a free, easy-to-navigate, high quality online publication that features work by established and emerging artists and authors from all over the world. We publish two issues a year with art, fiction, interviews, nonfiction and poetry.